CHAPTER VI
FINANCE
Prelimi- Two simple facts give the key to the special conditions of
remarks. Indian finance. More than 90 per cent. of the population is
The rural and subsists mainly by agriculture. The total value of
growth of Indian imports and exports rose in the sixty years ending
revenue
and expen- with 1903-4 from 28 to 246 crores of rupees'. Although the
diture. population of India still consists in the main of a poor peasantry,
great strides have been made in the development of her resources,
and her national wealth is growing apace. This economic pro-
gress has been accompanied by an enormous rise in the
revenues and expenditure of the state. The gross revenues of
India amounted to 21 crores in I840, to 43 crores in I860-1,
to 70 crores in 1880-1, and to II3 crores in I9oo-I. These
figures are given merely by way of general illustration: the
acquisition of new territory and changes in the system of finance
and accounts rob them of any claim to form a basis for accurate
financial comparison. The expenditure incurred from these
growing resources represents a complete revolution in the con-
dition of the country. Since the days of the Mutiny, India has
been equipped with the apparatus of a modern civilized state.
The courts of justice, the police, and the jails have been enor-
mously improved. The emoluments of all classes of native
officials have been raised, and an increasing share in the work
of administration has been transferred to them. A wide system
of public instruction has been developed; some three thousand
hospitals and dispensaries bring medical relief within reach of
the people; and large sums have been spent in improving the
sanitary condition of towns and villages. Great systems of
railways and irrigation works have been constructed, and the
post office and telegraph departments have been brought to
a high pitch of efficiency2. These are some of the most impor-
Financial and Commercial Statistics of British India, tenth issue.
'There was formerly in British India, comparatively speaking, little of
what we now think the first necessities of a civilized administration.
When, in 1844, I first went from Calcutta to the North-Western Provinces,
I was carried about a thousand miles in a palanquin on men's shoulders,